The last two races have devolved into a fight between Verstappen and Norris for supremacy and so it was in sprint qualifying at the Red Bull Ring.
But whereas Norris pipped Verstappen to pole in Spain last weekend, the world champion was fastest in every session in the shortened qualifying session that is held for the sprint and always looked most likely to take pole.
In fact, Norris appeared to struggle through the first two sessions, in which he was only fourth and seventh, but pulled out a strong lap when it mattered.
First Russell, then Piastri set the pace, before Norris moved the goalposts by a large amount for such a short lap, only for Verstappen to re-establish himself at the front with the final lap of the session.
The crowd, a large portion of which have travelled from the Netherlands to support him in their trademark orange tops, cheered him across the line at what is Red Bull’s home race on a track they own.
Verstappen said: “It is great to be first here in front of basically my home fans my home grand prix, it has been a good day so far. It has been nice to drive the car. Immediately it was well balanced.
“Of course you make some small changes before spring qualifying and everything has been working really well.”
Norris said: “I never got quite comfortable until my final lap so I am quite happy with that. Close. It must have been a nice lap by Max and (it’s) a good position for the sprint tomorrow.”
Leclerc suffered an engine problem at the end of the pit lane as the cars went out for the single lap which settles the sprint qualifying session.
His car went into anti-stall and then the engine stopped. By the time he had gone through the process of restarting the car, he did not have enough time to get around to the line before the chequered flag came out.
Hamilton ran off track twice in the first session, first at the first corner and then at Turn Six. The second damaged his floor, which cost him about 0.2 seconds, according to Mercedes’ initial investigations, with more to follow. The seven-time champion ended up 0.216secs off Russell’s time.
He said: “I wasn’t in the mix the whole session. It was pretty disastrous from my point of view. Car felt good, I don’t think we had the pace to be on pole but very bad laps.”
